I do not know how to love God except by loving the poor. I do not know how to serve God except by serving the poor.... Here, within this great city of nine million people, we must, in this neighborhood, on this street, in this parish, regain a sense of community which is the basis for peace in the world.

The anarchist philosophy is that the new social order is to be built up by groupings of men together in communities - whether in communities of work or communities of culture or communities of artists - but in communities.

Don't worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.

Whatever I had read as a child about the saints had thrilled me. I could see the nobility of giving one's life for the sick, the maimed, the leper. But there was another question in my mind. Why was so much done in remedying the evil instead of avoiding it in the first place? Where were the saints to try to change the social order, not just to minister to the slaves, but to do away with slavery?

You can't write about things without doing them. You just have to live that same way.

Some have more capacity. Some proceed a few steps along the way. But Christ seemed to love all men. He desired all to be saved.

This is so rich a country that luxury has developed at the expense of necessities, and even the destitute partake of the luxury. We are the rich country of the world, like Dives at the feast. We must try hard, we must study to be poor like Lazarus at the gate, who was taken into Abraham's bosom.